When Southern Californians watch the Academy Awards show on Sunday, we’ll see both a celebration of the best of Hollywood and a reflection of the most damaging trend in the movie industry.

The industry has been drifting away from its traditional home region for years now, setting up filming locations in other states and countries that offer hard-to-refuse economic inducements, causing inconvenience or worse for tens of thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on local movie and TV production.

A look at the list of movies up for the biggest awards on Oscar night shows just how much “Hollywood” has become a concept rather than the place where films are actually shot, and spotlights the need for California to make improvements to its own production-incentive program such as those proposed recently by Los Angeles-area state Assemblymen Raul Bocanegra and Mike Gatto.

Of the nine movies nominated for best picture, only one was filmed even partly in Southern California. That’s “Her,” which was shot mostly in Los Angeles (and partly in Shanghai).

And of the 12 movies represented in the six major Oscar categories — including best picture as well as best director and the four acting categories — only two were filmed here: “Her” and “August: Osage County,” which was shot in L.A. (and Oklahoma).

This is a serious decline from 10 years ago, when seven of the 19 movies in the major Oscar categories were produced at least partly in Southern California, on locations from Santa Clarita to Long Beach and Tarzana to Pomona.

Another way the Oscars showcase the phenomenon of runaway production is the decades-long slide in the number of best picture winners filmed here. According to location listings at the Internet Movie Database, Southern California-filmed best pictures have declined from nine in the 1940s and seven in the 1950s, and five in both the 1960s and 1970s, to two in the decade of the 2000s.

“The Artist” and “Argo,” the past two best pictures, were filmed in Southern California. But that modest winning streak is likely to end Sunday evening.

Advertisement

The fact that the finest films are rarely made here anymore would merely be a blow to the region’s cultural clout and pride if it weren’t accompanied by the decimation of entertainment-industry jobs in California as productions are lured away by tax credits and rebates offered by New York and other states.

A study released Thursday by the Milken Institute, a Santa Monica-based economic think tank, cites U.S. Labor Department statistics showing California lost more than 16,000 jobs in film and TV production and distribution between 2004 and 2012, a 10 percent drop. These are middle-class jobs, averaging more than $95,000 a year.

At the same time as entertainment jobs have declined here, they’ve increased in New York by more than 10,000 jobs, and in Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Mexico and Nevada by smaller margins. With 43 states offering production incentives — a total of $1.5 billion in subsidies in 2010 — the Milken study concludes that “other states are being more effective in using their incentives to bring in new productions and create jobs.”

No wonder. While California’s 4-year-old incentives program offers a total of $100 million a year in tax credits to film and TV productions, New York offers $420 million, and Louisiana’s and New Mexico’s totals are higher in proportion to their size. And California imposes more qualifications than other states.

AB 1839, submitted in February by Gatto, D-Burbank, and Bocanegra, D-Arleta, attacks most of those problems. It would remove the current exclusion of movies with budgets over $75 million and new one-hour TV dramas. How much California’s $100 million incentive fund might grow will be subject to legislative negotiation.

The Milken report emphasizes that runaway production has done the most damage to workers — people who directly or indirectly make their livings from film and TV. Many are forced to leave the state to chase jobs in their chosen industry, or lose jobs entirely.

The damage reflected in the Oscar-nominated movies and highlighted by the Milken study must be addressed, and the Bocanegra-Gatto bill is the best package of proposals yet.

If California fights back and keeps jobs from leaving, future Academy Award shows may be celebrations not only for the stars but also the vital workers behind the scenes.